CD REVIEW – PESKY BONES – Volume 1

CD REVIEW – PESKY BONES – Volume 1
Independent
2016
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
7/10

Peter Farnan’s greatest claim to fame was as a core member of late ‘80s/early ‘90s Aussie pop-rocksters Boom Crash Opera, who in an illuminating article for the Daily Review describes being “lost in a maelstrom of stylistic confusion, expressive ambition and the desire to ‘get it all out of me’” as he recorded this first offering under his new moniker Pesky Bones.

It can’t have been easy – Farnan readily admits that he was a “middle-aged, ex-minor rock star… with my big selling records in the distant past, no industry push behind me, no budget and no distinctive singing voice,” so he did the only thing he could: he started writing songs about what it felt like to be middle-aged and in the now, called in favours from a myriad of musical friends and acquaintances, and crowd funded Volume 1.

The end result is, indeed, lacking one consistent sound and identity – by its very nature, we would imagine. Paul Kelly & Rebecca Barnard duet on the folky, almost Leonard Cohen-esque Now That Our Babies Have Grown, channelling a couple whose kids have moved out and moved on; Tim Rogers mourns the breakdown of his own marriage in the emotionally charged Get Me To A Church; Sean Kelly muses on the uncertainty of navigating modern relationships in Flying Blind; and elsewhere Ali Barter, Paul Capsis, Sarah Ward, Emily Lubitz, Dan Tobias, Deborah Conway, Charles Jenkins and Simon Burke all lend their vocals to the project.

Given the themes of “regret, sex, mortality and raging against the dying light,” the exploratory, eclectic, almost incohesive nature of Volume 1 makes abundant sense and works well. As a collection of cool songs sung by some of Australia’s best, it’s a no brainer.

Category: CD Reviews